Working at a hospital you’d undoubtedly come across more than a few children who wind up stuck in a hospital bed through the holidays. Cancer patients and random sick people will line the beds of most hospitals throughout the year, but once the holidays roll around we all know just how much of an emotional time of year it is. Fortunately there are more than a couple people and organisations out there dedicated to relieving that holiday sadness as much as possible, but there’s one woman who took it upon herself personally in a way that will really blow you away.

Eight years ago Jessie Tendayi was hired on at a children’s hospital in Chicago as a good service aid. Each day, each year she wouldn’t talk to a lot of people and subsequently was just as left alone. She would occasionally pick up some overtime hours but that was the extent of her work relationships, until some new information came to light. One day her boss walked in to one of the back rooms at the hospital and discovered what exactly she’d been up to those past eight years.

Back in 2009 Tendahi decided to take a portion of her pay check to begin purchasing Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/etc. gifts for some of the children stuck in the hospital. Back when she first started she purchased 100 different gifts for the kids in the hospital she worked at, but since then has grown into something much larger. She purchased all the gifts herself with the extra overtime pay she received instead of using that money on something else, and now she’s up to around 1,000 gifts each year! This year alone she managed to spend roughly $5,000 on around 1,000 different presents for the kids at the Advocate Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois!

According to interviews conducted by WGN, a mother of one of the children she’s given a gift to has stated:

“It’s amazing that someone’s giving their time and effort to make sure children in the hospital have a great Christmas too.”

After discovering the incredibly touching actions this woman has taken over the years more people want to join in, so she’s decided to start a charity named Love for Children. Her overall goal isn’t fame or anything like that, it’s solely and simply to bring a smile to the faces of children who would otherwise have little reason to. If you’re looking to restore a bit of your faith in humanity this is definitely one story to keep close to heart.